Deep-clean tractors leave Orange Beach, city officials follow with infrared light; BP promises to pay for beach renourishment next year

View full sizeContractors work to clean the sand on the beach just west of the Florida-Alabama state line, in Orange Beach, Ala., using a "Sand Shark" Monday, Oct. 18, 2010. The Sand Shark reaches below the surface while using the lift and shift method of cleaning the sand. (Press-Register, Bill Starling)

ORANGE BEACH, Ala. — With heavy equipment off the beach, state and city officials are preparing to evaluate the deep-cleaning process BP PLC crews performed through the past two months.

Mayor Tony Kennon, who pushed for the post-Deepwater Horizon oil spill work to be finished by the end of the year, said he was “ecstatic” that the massive tractors like the 40-foot Sand Shark were no longer crowding his city’s shoreline.

Throughout the process, Kennon had city workers following closely behind. As the work progressed, Kennon’s criticism lightened.

“I had umpteen dozen e-mails all through the fall complaining about equipment on the beach interrupting their time down here — and remember this is by far the slowest time of year,” he said. “So we certainly didn’t want heavy equipment on the beach going into the busier seasons. And as I’ve always said, it creates a perception problem.”

The deep-cleaning is still subject to inspection by the city and the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, and must win their approval.

“We’ve got to thoroughly evaluate the job they did,” Kennon said.

So now the city is testing a two-foot long infrared light that workers can take to the beach when they receive a call about possible tar in the sand.

Philip West, Orange Beach’s coastal resource manager, said tarballs could continue to wash ashore as the oil is pounded in the surf. Under the light, tar glows a florescent orange.

“Basically, we can judge how thorough the cleanup job was,” West said. “It’s going to be next to impossible to get every single speck of tar. But how close are we? If this helps us find an unacceptable amount, then there’s still work to do.”

Community Development Director Kit Alexander said the lights cost about $3,000 each and can be attached to all-terrain vehicles driven on the beach or along the backwater coastline.

“You can walk on the beach and it looks like it doesn’t have much tar on it,” Alexander said. “Then you get out there (with the light) and it pops.”

In Gulf Shores, where tractors are still plowing westward and scrubbing the sand, Mayor Robert Craft has offered help to the unincorporated areas of Fort Morgan peninsula.

Meanwhile, Kennon said that BP officials agreed to pay for a beach renourishment project that could save the two cities millions of dollars.

BP spokesman Justin Saia said the oil company is pursuing a plan to replace sand disturbed during the cleanup.

In 2005, a project that started at the Florida state line on Perdido Key and pumped about 6 million cubic yards of sand along 16 miles of beach to West Beach in Gulf Shores cost $25 million, and both cities shared the cost with the state.

A similar effort could cost much more six years later, and following the oil spill that likely left oil on the sea floor, as the sand is pumped from deep in the Gulf of Mexico.

The project would start after Labor Day 2011 could be completed by 2012.